


The Journey Forward

by BackyardPodcast



Series: Discussing Character [2]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Christine POV, Christine centric, Christine is a theater nerd and will be written as such, Christine's friends with everyone in this fic, Happy Ending, Michael and Rich became friends at the hospital, Michael is skipping school to check on Jeremy, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Post-Squip, Rich has a lisp, What the actual consequences would be, but I will die before I write it out, discussion of sexuality, figuring out sexuality, hospital visits
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 09:54:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20289532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BackyardPodcast/pseuds/BackyardPodcast
Summary: She remembered lying in bed after visiting the hospital that night and realizing that the world had shattered. The SQUIP's had taken apart so many relationships and people in their short time in New Jersey. Michael and Jeremy’s friendship broke months ago. Rich cracked into a new person, one not entirely himself, when he popped the pill. The world altered course when the first SQUIP activated.But the world was also putting itself back together. It had fractured into puzzle pieces, and now it was building a new picture out of the splintered remnants. Christine wondered if this new image would be a pretty one, and if it was better than the SQUIP-free one.She wanted to make it the most beautiful picture in the history of the world.~ ~ ~Or exploring what happens after the musical, from Christine's Perspective. Not as angsty as it sounds, I swear





	The Journey Forward

Christine didn’t know what to think. 

She remembered the night vividly, each movement and action engraved in her memory. The transparent figure that appeared. The promises it made. The steps it demanded she take in order to make good on those promises. The screeching pain that consumed her body when she drank the Mountain Dew. But all those details were soaked in confusion. What  _ had  _ happened? None of the events seemed like things that could feasibly happen. It felt like a fever dream.

So Christine didn’t know what to think.

She remembered an electronic figment appearing to her; a flickering, transparent vision of-- Ruth Bader Ginsburg? 

“I thought this was a knock-off of  _ A Midsummer Night’s Dream _ , not  _ Hamlet _ ,” she had said from a folding chair in the wings, voice shaking and quaking and making almost no noise. “What’s with the ghosts?”

The Ginsburg specter just smiled. “I’m no ghost, I’m here to help you. I’m a Super Quantum Unit Intel Processor, SQUIP for short. My job is to help you with all your troubles.”

“And you’re… Ruth Bader Ginsburg?” Christine’s hands squeezed her beaker prop. It was good that she had already drank it dry, or her tremors would have spilled it. 

“One of many forms I can take. I can also be Lin Manuel Miranda, Hillary Clinton, Barrett Wilbert Weed, or Kim Possible; if that would be more pleasing.” The SQUIP paused, tilting her head as if listening to some silent song. “Alterations of my appearance may have to wait. One of your classmates' SQUIP’s requires assistance.”

The SQUIP urged her to delve further backstage, but she held still. “Why should I listen to you?” Christine whispered. “You’re going to solve all my problems? How can a robot do that?” Her head fell into her hands. “Oh god, I’m hallucinating.”

“While you are the only person that can see me, I promise I am one hundred percent real. And as for why you should listen to me?” The flickering Ginsburg strode toward her and knelt, far smoother than any real elderly person should be capable of. “Because I know about all your problems. Every issue you are fighting, every internal struggle, I know about, and  _ I can fix _ .”

“Oh, yeah? How could you--”

“Your ADHD interferes with your focus, meaning outside of theater, you struggle to stick to any one project. You’re upset with the state of the world, but feel powerless to fix it. And here’s the big one,  _ you’re confused by your feelings toward Jeremy _ .” She tilted her head. “So, would you rather deal with those with only your fallible human brain on your side, or would you like the assistance of a supercomputer?”

Christine’s shoulders were caved in, her arms wrapped around her torso, and her eyes wide. How could this robot know all of that? How could it strip her raw so easily? 

Then, she remembered Jeremy’s words: how he explained what a SQUIP was, how he said it could make the world make sense. She remembered what she had seen: how Jeremy had climbed the ranks of the popular kids in months after starting from nothing. 

Christine already had a SQUIP. What was the point in turning down the opportunity of a lifetime?

“What do you need me to do?”

The SQUIP grinned.

She coaxed Christine into the green room, into a war zone. Her castmates surrounded Jeremy, who stood on top of a treasure chest leftover from  _ Pirates of Penzance _ . Jake pinned a hoodie-wearing kid she recognized from AP Lang to the floor in the corner. The popular kids shouted for Jeremy to give up and hand over a soda bottle, which he held out of reach. Their movements reminded Christine of the SQUIP’s, too smooth, too robotic to be human.

“Why?!” he screamed back. Tears smudged his face. “Why should I do that?!”

Fake Ginsburg gestured her arm out toward Jeremy, directing Christine forward. “You can help him,” she promised. “You care about him, I can see that much. Tell him that.”

“What do I say?” she whispered.

“Repeat after me.”

The SQUIP began speaking, and the words flowed through Christine. The Red Sea of popular kids parted as she, arm outstretched, walked toward Jeremy. He visibly softened at her appearance, at her speaking.  _ I care about you _ , she was saying.  _ I don’t know what’s upset you, but I want to help _ . 

Jeremy took her hand and stepped down from the treasure chest. Staring into his eyes, she squeezed his fingers. The quickest, saddest, most broken smile flickered on his face. Christine didn’t want him to be upset, he didn’t deserve that. She wanted to fix this, so when he raised the soda to her lips and told her to drink, she drank.

She then fell to the floor in pain. A spike drove itself through her skull, her brain spasming with uncontrolled electricity. Christine screamed, and the world went dark.

She remembered waking up in a fog. It slowly registered that Christine was laying in a clean hospital-white cot. Thin white sheets covered her torso, and a white pillow propped her head up. Her mother sat on the edge of the bed, stroking her arm.

“Hey, Mom.” Christine’s voice sat low and rough in her range. All that screaming must have wrecked it.

Her mother smiled. “Hey, sweetie.” 

The rest of the Canigula family would slowly trickle in, with a “Glad to see you awake,” or a “Chrissie!” 

“The doctors aren’t quite sure what happened,” her dad would explain softly, trying not to upset her. “It looks like you and all your classmates had seizures, but there isn’t anything that would make you all have them at once, especially when none of you have epilepsy. They want to keep an eye on you guys, so you might have to come in a couple of times for checkups.”

Christine knew what could cause a collective seizure. She knew, but she didn’t say anything.

She remembered going to school Monday. 

It was the same as always. Submitting assignments, taking quizzes, learning the necessities to pass her classes.

But it was… off. Teachers looked at her with a newfound sympathy and lenience. Students that normally wouldn’t have spared her a glance gazed at her with either a kind smile or wary eyes. And the popular kids… they invited Christine to sit with them. She wondered if they felt the same remnants of a connection as she did, the same flickering recall of each other’s innermost selves. 

“Christine!” Brooke called from her lunch table, motioning her over with her arm. “We saved you a spot!”

So Christine ate the cardboard mac and cheese with Jake, Chloe, Brooke, and Jenna. They talked about school, about crabby teachers and drama amongst students and homework due last Friday, and refused to stray to any topics that Christine actually wanted to talk about. 

Until- “Where’s Jeremy?” she asked. It didn’t make sense, not inviting him to sit with them but calling Christine over. He was far more one of them than she had ever been. Did they blame him for causing the SQUIP’s, or worse, did they blame him for taking them away?

Jenna shifted in her seat. “He’s still in the hospital. He’s… he hasn’t woken up yet.”

Oh.

“Anyways-” A forced grin pained Chloe’s face as she pushed the conversation into a new topic. “-Jake, what did you say happened with Dustin?”

Jeremy wasn’t the only missing student. The hoodie-wearing kid was gone from AP Lang. Christine wouldn’t have noticed his absence if not for his appearance at the play.

“Michael Mell?” drawled the teacher during attendance. “Is Michael Mell here?”

His name was Michael. The hoodie-wearing kid was named Michael. Why wasn’t he at school? Was he unconscious in the hospital like Jeremy?

She remembered going back to the hospital, this time to visit Jeremy. Christine checked in with the visiting desk, got permission and directions to the right room.

She had always liked hospitals. They made a lot of people uncomfortable or grossed out, but they were busy and helpful and chaotic. The staff hustled around in their halls, on their way to save lives. A hospital could never be still; it was always moving and traveling. Even if her location was calm, she knew that action wasn’t far. 

When Christine entered Jeremy’s room, she heard laughter. At first, she thought it was Jeremy’s. Her eyes searched for the right bed, and she found him! But he was… asleep. It wasn’t him laughing.

Only then did she notice the other two people in the room. Rich lay in a hospital bed of his own, his whole body restrained in casts and bandages. The hoodie-wearing kid--  _ Michael _ , she thought-- sat backwards in a wheeled seat. They stared at her, frozen.

“Hey,” Christine waved awkwardly, yellow flowers in hand. “Mind if I join you guys?”

Michael peered at her for a second longer before melting, a softer expression dawning on his face. “Sit wherever.” He gestured around the room.

She found a spot at the foot of Jeremy’s bed. 

“So what brings you here, Christine?” Rich asked with some weirdly-placed eyebrow wiggles. She noted the lisp; that was certainly new.

“I heard Jeremy was still locked up in this place so--” she held up the yellow blooms-- “flowers.” Christine paused again, debating whether or not to continue. “You… you have a lisp now?”

“Oh, yeah, absolutely.” He nodded, up and down and up and down and up and do- “Ever since you guys deactivated all the SQUIP's,  _ poof! _ It’s back! I guess without my SQUIP blocking it, there’s nothing stopping me from talking like this.”

She mentally took a step back. “You had a SQUIP?”

“He was the one to give Jeremy a SQUIP in the first place,” Michael murmured.

“Oh.”

The two boys would catch her up on everything they knew, from where the hologram of Ruth Bader Ginsburg went to how come Jeremy had gotten a SQUIP in the first place to why they thought he was still unconscious. It struck her how little she knew them. Michael she had never talked to before today, but Christine soon learned that he was sarcastic, nerdy, and not-quite talkative. His sense of humor was just pun-ny enough to be able to bring her to tears. He liked video games, namely retro ones, and overall loved anything made before 1990. And he… he’d been Jeremy’s best friend pre-SQUIP. They hadn’t talked in months. Christine couldn’t help but glance over at Jeremy and wonder how well she actually knew him. 

Rich… as she had already found out, spoke with a lisp now. 

One of the first traits an actor determines when playing a new part is the voice. A well-defined voice tells the audience a character’s whole… well, character. Are they a nerd who speaks nasally? Are they a valley girl who talks in a Californian accent? Are they a crotchety old man who grumbles all their lines (with enough diction to be understood, of course)? The options are limitless. 

Rich reverting back to a lisp made him come across as a different person, a different character. And the vocal tick wasn’t the only change in him. Old, SQUIP-ed Rich was rough and tough. If he made a crude joke, it was because he was challenging anyone and everyone to comment. New Rich was more like a puppy. A puppy with the same level of confidence that SQUIP-ed Rich had, the ability to talk, and absolutely no filter. Christine sympathized with that last trait.

She’d only properly met these people that day but could already feel a connection forming, she realized with a smile and a laugh as Michael deadpanned another one-liner.

She remembered lying in bed after visiting the hospital that night and realizing that the world had shattered. The SQUIP's had taken apart so many relationships and people in their short time in New Jersey. Michael and Jeremy’s friendship broke months ago. Rich cracked into a new person, one not entirely himself, when he popped the pill. The world altered course when the first SQUIP activated.

But the world was also putting itself back together. It had fractured into puzzle pieces, and now it was building a new picture out of the splintered remnants. Christine wondered if this new image would be a pretty one, and if it was better than the SQUIP-free one.

She wanted to make it the most beautiful picture in the history of the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for clicking on and reading through this fic!!! This whole fic is going to be exploring the characters and pushing them to grow as people, so if you want to read through that, stick around!
> 
> Please leave comments, I live for validation. Constructive criticism is welcomed and encouraged, I want to grow as a writer!


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